I used to be a yeller. I would yell at just about everyone and everything. Someone would disagree with me and I would raise my voice. Someone would yell at me and I would be sure to yell back. Someone would cut me off in traffic and I would be sure to yell in anger (now I just flip them off). Recently I had an epiphany: yelling really affects your credibility.

There are three good reasons not to yell:

It takes too much energy. I look at energy as fuel in your tank and yelling just burns too much gas.

If someone yells at you and you take a deep breath, pause and respond with “I’m sorry I didn’t realize what you were saying because you were yelling.” That makes them look like what they truly are; an asshole.

Yelling leads to anger. Think of all the times you made bad decisions in your life. Chances are it was preceded by you yelling and then followed by making a bad judgment. The only exception I can think of is years ago doing too many shots of patron and waking up to see two female tundra twins making ham sandwiches in my kitchen while passing a crack pipe.

When is the last time that yelling lead to a positive result? Yelling at a loved one makes you feel bad afterwards. Yelling at your spouse or better half usually leads to a slap in the face or at the very least a slamming of a door. Yelling at a cop will never get you out of a ticket and yelling at a water park while making balloon animals and wearing clown makeup will get you arrested. Perhaps the latter was not the best example.

Life is too short. Realize there are a lot of stupid people in this world and try laughing at them instead of yelling at them. I may not be the smartest person in the world but it’s amazing how people will suddenly view you as a superior intellectual just because you don’t react to adversity by raising your voice. So this week try to remain calm, cool and collected or I may just have to yell at you.

Like this:

So I’m sitting here watching the chaos in Charlotte, North Carolina and I think I have it figured out. Don’t judge the many by the actions of a few. I understand the frustration that people have regarding excessive force but black cop shooting black guy doesn’t equate to “beat the shit out of white people.”

Did the cop use excessive force? I don’t know I wasn’t there. Will an investigation determine who was at fault? I don’t know as I don’t fully trust “investigations.” What I do know is this: there are two kinds of people in this world, good and bad. The conversation should start and end there. Apply that belief to any situation and it takes race and ethnicity out of the conversation. Is there racism in our society? Yes. It’s permeated by those that are bad. Is there corruption in law enforcement in this country? Yes. Again these would be the bad people. See how easy this is? Let’s continue. Is there corruption in any business in this country? Yes. Once again my theory applies.

This should not be about race this should be about stopping the bad and promoting the good. If something bad happens and you react in a bad way then you become part of the problem and not the solution. We all have experienced frustration. When we let frustration turn into anger we usually make bad decisions and we then become part of the bad. Bad also affects the credibility of your cause. If you want to fight the bad then you need to be part of the good otherwise your desired solution is clouded by your bad reaction.

The sun will go down tonight in Charlotte and people will have the chance to make a decision. Will it be bad or good? Only time will tell but at this point I think we are moving backward instead of forward; and that’s very bad.